Belt It
by Kate-Emma
Summary: Complete - One-Shot - Millie had stage fright, really bad, so why did all of a sudden the words come easily and the emotions run freely... all the way to the ears of another... Millie/Max


**Disclaimer: **I don't own The Bill. Song by Kate Nash.

**A/N: **I wrote this a very long time ago, back when Little Blue Note by feebee was first posted, but it took forever to finish it because of various different reasons. Hopefully this inspires me back into The Bill, but we'll have to wait and see. Oh and BTW, Mallie will NEVER die!

Belt It…  
_PC Millie Brown_

Apparently at Sun Hill a good clear-up rate, a happy Inspector and a place nearby were all good excuses for a Friday night to end in a trip to the pub. A random early December drink driving bust (which had landed people with merit points lost, drivers licences removed or time in the lock-up given) had been such a resounding success that by Friday night they had taken over eighty people off the road, Inspector Smith had a grin from ear-to-ear and the Super mentioned something about celebratory drinks. Millie had been hesitant, having already promised her flatmate a quiet night in, a girl's night. She hadn't really seen her flatmate in weeks, excluding passing in the hall, and they had gossip to catch up on. But Nate was persistent.

"Come on Mill, the Super's put his card under the bar and it's our civil duty to max it." Nate beamed at the idea, the list of expensive (and Mel joked probably girly) drinks already banking up on a list in his head. "Do it, for England!" He gave a triumphant fist pump leaving Roger shaking his head and Ben calling him an idiot.

Sally knew about the girl's night and had come pre-planned with her own line of attack. "Call Lara, tell her to meet us, we'll get her drinks, Super doesn't need to know." Knowing Lara wouldn't turn down free drinks, Millie eventually relented and called her friend, the bubbly blonde agreeing to meet them there in half an hour. So now, free to 'drink for England', Millie grabbed her coat and joined the others for the short walk to the pub.

...

"Chick's drink, chick's drink, chick's drink, rum and coke, pint, chick's drink." Mel grinned at the tray of drinks. "Nathanial, there's only three women here."

Ben snorted as he took the rum and coke, handing Roger his beer, but Nate had an answer. "It's for Lara." But no one believed it, leaving Nate to sulk off towards the CID crew in the other corner, off to try and get some reinforcements from Will. 'Uniform are picking on me' and all that. Mel took the fourth drink and alternated between the Grasshopper and her own Strawberry Daiquiri, looking very pleased with the acquisition. A sign in the corner, however, put off Sally's attention. The others at the table safely assumed the worst when Sally grinned, grabbed Roger's wrist and read his watch with a squeal. "Yes!" They followed her eyes to a chalkboard that read off a list of things that happened at the pub on certain nights. Wednesday, 8pm – Trivia Night. Thursday, 9pm – Dance Party. Saturday, 6pm – Dance Party. Friday, 8pm – Karaoke.

"No." Millie was the first to speak and quickly regretted it when the other two women turned on her with evil smiles. "I said no and I mean no." She shouldn't have been so quick on opening her mouth because her disapproval just made 'Mel of The Two Drinks' grin.

"Oh yes."

Sally jumped up, almost knocking over her own Grasshopper. "I'm signing us up!" Millie grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her down.

"You sign me up to sing Sally Armstrong and I will make your life a misery."

Sally laughed. "You know, the whole threatening thing only really works when you don't have an expression like a lost lamb." With a grin and a cheeky bleat in Millie's direction, Sally escaped the redhead's clutches and rushed over to the sign up sheet. Which meant Millie now had twenty minutes to make up some kind of incurable illness, sneak away or just plain lose her voice. She'd never been a good liar, or actress, so decided on sneaking away.

"So, more drinks?" She stood, but Mel saw right through it.

"Sit down." So, confined to her table, Millie sipped her Midori and lemonade with a melancholy expression etched to her face.

...

Ten minutes later and with time still to make an escape, Millie tried again with the drinks. This time she got away from the seats, to the bar, and just close enough to make a break for the entrance when she was pounced on by an energetic blonde figure. Millie smiled at her flatmate who ordered a vodka orange then literally bounced over to Millie's friends to introduce herself to anyone she didn't know already. The girl had enough energy for two which was nice now that all of Millie's energy and composure had slipped through the soles of her feet at the mention of singing in front of a bar full of her workmates. It wasn't that she was a bad singer, in fact she liked singing, it was just her deathly shyness that made it awful. Standing there, exposed to all of them, all judging eyes upon her – Millie almost fainted at the mere idea of it. The reality seemed like a very, very stupid plan.

Sally returned a few moments later. "We're all signed up, and I picked songs for everyone. I'm going to sing 'River Deep Mountain High' because I just so have the pipes for it!" She grinned and touched her throat. "But I have to wait because Millie was so determined to go first I just had to let her have her moment."

Lara laughed and looked at Millie. "You're going to sing? I thought you had stage fright!"

Millie said nothing, just giving Sally a cold look.

"Don't worry," Sally gave a smile and a wink. "I picked the absolutely perfect song for you Mills."

Millie just dropped her head onto the table with a soft clunk.

...

"Singing first for us tonight, with 'Pumpkin Soup' by Kate Nash, is Amelia Brown!" The guy on the front stage hadn't been getting much attention up until now, the clientele of mostly police force ignoring him, but at the mention of Millie's name they stopped talking and looked up with shock as Millie was half-pushed and half-dragged onto the stage by a broadly-grinning Mel and a sly-smiling Sally. "Here she is," he handed Millie the microphone as her two fellow PCs shoved her forward with one last ounce of strength. "Take it away miss Brown."

The music started and, as Millie looked at the ground and tried to block out the eyes of her workmates, the first few lines came very slowly. "_You're chatting to me like we connect_," Sally got a death stare but she simply grinned. "_But I don't even know if we're still friends_."

In the front row Will Fletcher started up a one-man 'go Millie' campaign. She grinned at his enthusiasm and he gave her a thumbs-up and a loud "Rock it Mill."

She gripped the microphone a little tighter to keep herself upright. Her head fluttered and her face burned from embarrassment, but she soldiered on, as was her way. "_It's so confusing, understanding you is making me not want to do the things that I know I should do._"

Stevie gave a loud, long whistle to cheer Millie forward and she smiled, the support allowing her embarrassment to fade and her enjoyment to grow. "_But I trip fast and then I lose and I hate looking like a fool._"

Behind her Sally and Mel sang too for the chorus and Millie came to enjoy it so much she even pulled the microphone from the stand. "_I just want your kiss boy, kiss boy, kiss boy. I just want your kiss_."

She moved across the stage now, able to walk once again and feeling blood rushing from her face and back down to her feet, she decided to take in the room, see all the support she could hear she was getting. Lara was standing on a table waving her hands in the air as the bartender watched on, torn between tossing her out and joining in. He let her go. "_The lights are on and someone's home_," she tapped her head along and many of her workmates laughed. "_But I'm not sure if they're alone_." With a shrug she looked at Sally once again who gave her two thumbs up.

Maybe this wasn't the worst idea she'd ever had after all…

...

The free drinks had been far too good an offer for DS Max Carter to turn down, even if it did mean enduring what, even from the front of the pub, sounded like a very silly atmosphere inside. Someone was singing a bubblegum pop song he'd heard on the radio once or twice, a voice he didn't recognise and so assumed he didn't know, but as soon as he stepped through the doors and saw her he knew he was wrong. Well, the not recognising part was right because up there she seemed very different. PC Millie Brown, the unassuming girl who never talked back, was moving around the stage like a professional. He stood on the threshold of the pub like a stunned mullet for a few minutes as she continued to sing, finding he'd walked in on the most inappropriate part of the lyrics as she cooed '_I'm not in love, I just want to be touched_' into the microphone. Shaking himself he moved to the bar and ordered a beer, staying back behind the rest of CID but like them, unable to keep his eyes off the crooning PC.

...

Millie didn't see Max enter, a good thing too as her confidence lifted and she launched back into the chorus, taking a chance and stepping off the stage, microphone in hand, for the next verse. Will, who was standing near the front, grabbed her hand as she sang, swinging her into a pirouette. "_Whoops I think I've got too close_," Will let her go and she grinned at Ben who was standing nearby, "_'cause now he's telling me that I'm the girl that he likes most_." Nate gave her a strange little knuckle thump kind of gesture as she passed him, still too caught up in the music to know where she was subconsciously headed. "_Now I messed up, it's not the first time_." Roger gave her a very supportive wink as she kind of danced past him, grinning with a thumbs-up. "_I'm not saying you're not on my mind_," then, turning back to the stage, she shot one last look behind her expecting to see either Stevie or one of the other women in CID. Instead she found herself being watched by a stony-faced Max Carter whose expression was blank but his eyes gave away the smallest hint of something Millie wrote off as amusement. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw him and she barely managed to breathe out "_I hope that you don't think I'm unkind_"before hastening back up to the stage and away from his gaze. The problem was that as soon as she got there and had to get back into telling the audience before her how she just wanted 'his kiss', she couldn't stop her eyes flickering to him, her smile fading each time she caught his.

It was only then that Millie understood what Sally had meant by 'picked the absolutely perfect song for you'. It all made sense now, in Sally's special messed-up way of course. The lyrics said enough… 'so confusing', 'lights are on' (she'd thought that when she'd sung it, so how hadn't she gathered it then?), and everything else. She shot a look back at Sally to find the blonde PC grinning and Millie cursed her. Of course Sally had known about Millie's crush on Max and now she was using it for entertainment gain.

Millie was silently fuming.

But then reality caught up and she smiled. Sally didn't do things like this without a reason, so maybe there was more to it. She realised then that the weight of not saying what she felt about her senior was lifted, like singing the feelings made them less cumbersome, and the stage fright was most certainly gone. Maybe Sally had done her a favour after all?

She finished the song with a bow, earning an eager round of applause from the team and a wolf whistle of appreciation from Will. Handing back the microphone, Millie stepped down from the stage to find Sally, Lara and Mel talking eagerly with Will, Nate, Ben and Roger about how they'd 'never known' Millie could 'belt it like that'. Millie gave her usual shy smile, the power of the stage gone, and moved to the bar to get herself a stiff drink. Her path was waylaid however by a familiar figure.

"I didn't know you could sing."

Millie just raised her eyebrows, looking up at Max at a slight angle, watching him just under her eyelids. It was her usual shy pose, but it was all a ruse. "That's because you don't really know me sarge." With a smile Millie looked back at the bar, taking her drink from the barman, and motioned back to her friends.

He took the hint. "Well, you were good," the words a stiff parting compliment.

Millie just beamed and shot him back a smile over her left shoulder. "I know." Then, sipping her drink and heading back to the congratulations and compliments of her friends, Millie was thankful she had come out tonight. Free drinks, free embarrassment and free sticking it to Max Carter? What more could a Friday night in Canley ever need?


End file.
